Confidence among venture capital investors is reportedly at the highest level since Sequoia Capital's infamous 2008 slide deck that forecast gloom and doom along Sand Hill Road in 2008.

University of San Francisco Professor Mark Cannice's quarterly sampling of a few dozen partners at prominent Silicon Valley firms shows they gave their confidence in the third quarter at an average rating of 3.92 on a 5-point scale.

That marks five straight quarters of increased confidence and up from a low of just under 3 back at the time of the ominous Sequoia warning in 2008.

"Momentum in innovation in growing market opportunities coupled with a better exit environment is supporting the venture business model and bolstering sentiment," the report quotes Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson as saying.

Among those with some reservation, however, was Jack Young of Qualcomm Ventures who commented on a lack of new platforms: "The social media ecosystem around Facebook and Twitter has matured, as have mobile apps on iOS/Android."

Standish O’Grady of Granite Ventures in another who is more sanguine, citing a "great amount of innovation, but venture fund raising is low."